Page 169 of The Shadow Wand

I let out a shuddering breath as Lukas continues to draw steadily on my magic, replenishing his own.

“Where are we?” I ask Chi Nam.

She rises from where she was crouched by Valasca and walks to the portal, the dimmed runes of its frame still rotating against the mountain’s stone wall. She raises her rune stylus, sounds a spell, and begins to tap sorcery codes into the runes. “We are in the Northwestern Agolith Desert,” she says in the Noi language as she taps. “Welcome to my Vonor.”

I mentally place us on the map of the Realms.

The Northwestern Agolith Desert. Just east of the Caledonian Mountain Range.

Disturbingly close to Gardneria.

“I don’t understand whatVonormeans,” I say, the translation rune marked behind my ear seeming unable to find a word in the Common Tongue to morph the sound into.

Chi Nam throws me a cunning smile. “A Vonor is a Lo Voi sanctuary.” She turns back to the portal, the runes brightening in response to the motion of her stylus. “Most portal crones have a Vonor. A place known to no one else where we can practice our craft in isolation, in a location so remote it’s unlikely that anyone could ever find it. This Vonor is set amidst a large stretch of wilderness and bordered on all sides by deadly storm bands.” She gestures to the horizon with a pointed glance over her shoulder.

The band of dark clouds hugging the horizon is spitting lightning along its length, and I view it with trepidation, the gloom of it seeming impenetrable. The storm band has the appearance of a line of mountains traveling parallel to us. The scarlet moon hangs above it as if in bloodred warning.

“Ancient One,” I breathe out, turning back to Chi Nam as she reaches the last rune on the portal’s arcing frame and taps a code into it.

“Those storm bands are called ha’voor,” Chi Nam tells me as she straightens and turns around, narrowing her gaze at the horizon. “They were created by the Zhilon’ileWyverns after the last Realm War. They’re virtually impassable.” She leans into her runic staff and points at the horizon’s band of darkest gray. “That storm band is part of the much larger net of storms that are cast over the entire desert. Fly over them, and you’re hit with the entirety of their lightning. No matter how high you come in.” She casts me a sly smile. “Difficult for both Gardnerians and Vu Trin to get through.”

“Vogel marked one of those scorpios that attacked us with his eye,” I warn. “He was watching us through it. He also formed multiple deflection runes that all of you were surprised by. It seems to me that we don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I’ve ward-illusioned this entire area,” Chi Nam says, her tone hardening, as if in direct challenge to Marcus Vogel. She flicks her gaze up. “And the runic shield above us is military grade. Much like the dome that protects both the Amaz and the Noi lands.”

I raise my brow at this as I take in the translucent runic dome just above us, remembering the dome-shielded Amaz city of Cyme. This shield encases our immediate area like a huge bubble, the barely visible sphere liberally splashed with dim, curving Noi runes.

“When you say this area is ‘ward-illusioned’...does that mean it’s glamoured?” I ask.

Chi Nam’s head bobs in affirmation. “That’s an apt description. If you were to look down at us from above or from a distance, you’d see only a rocky mountain. Unless you got very close.”

It’s reassuring, but only to a point. I’ve an intrinsic sense that it’s only a matter of time before Vogel finds a way around all of this sorcery and swoops down to claim his Black Witch.

“Vogel might send out search spells,” Lukas bites out through his pain. “And Elloren is currently unshielded.”

“We’re too far away for any search spell to reach from Gardneria,” Chi Nam counters. “And search spells cannot penetrate this dome, even amplified.”

“We don’t know what he can do,” Lukas presses. “We need to get her farther east as quickly as possible.” Lukas glances at the portal, and I follow his gaze, the brightened runes of its frame slowly rotating against the mountain’s stone wall.

My eyes stop on the severed scorpio forelimb strewn before it, and a shiver passes through me. “I’m assuming you’re charging it again?” I ask Chi Nam. “To get farther east?”

“I am,” she says as she moves toward the mouth of a shallow cave that lies beside the portal and taps her stylus along the cave’s flat inner wall.

A door springs to life, made up of a solid mass of multiple rotating blue runes, the cave’s shadows now infused with sapphire light.

“The portal’s trajectory is newly set for the Noi lands,” Chi Nam tells me as small threads of blue lightning fork from the door’s edge. “Toward a corresponding rune in the Dyoi Forest. But it takes time to charge it for one passage. More for four. And it’s not precharged like the portal we used to get here. Even using the bulk of my stored magic, it will take weeks to charge this portal powerfully enough for us all to get through the bands of storm magic and to the Eastern Realm.”

Weeks?

Worry mounts. “How many weeks?”

“Perhaps four.” There’s a flicker of grim indecision in her dark eyes that I don’t want to catch but do. She, Valasca, and Lukas exchange somber glances, and my apprehension flares higher. I can read in their shared expressions how unlikely it is that we’ll reach the end of so much time without Vogel finding us here. And I realize...we’re gambling.

It’s a bet that we might lose.

Who needs good odds? Where would the fun be in that?

A sliver of morbid amusement rises as I remember saying that to Trystan, the thought prompting a familiar pang of longing for my brothers as I glance up and follow the crimson constellations east.

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